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Will ordinary citizens be able to invest their hard-earned shekels in Tim Geithner’s sweetheart deal to buy up toxic waste legacy assets from distressed banks?  Here’s a quick followup:

Two of the country’s biggest money managers — Newport Beach-based Pacific Investment Management Co., known as Pimco, and New York-based BlackRock Inc. — say they may launch funds that would allow individuals to have a stake in some of the bad assets to be purchased from banks.

….Bill Gross, co-chief investment officer at Pimco, said his firm was looking into the idea of creating mutual funds that would tap into the program. BlackRock is doing the same, said Curtis Arledge, co-head of fixed income at the firm.

The story goes on to suggest that the funds may be closed-end with a minimum buy-in of $25,000.  If that’s how it turns out, it wouldn’t exactly allow Joe Sixpack to get in on this deal.  Still, it’s a step in the right direction.  It’ll be interesting to see if Treasury encourages other retail funds get in on this action.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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